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Emerald Ash Borer Scouting

The way this client found me is a little bit strange. He found my website by googling “bacterial leaf scorch” (I have articles posted about my experiences with BLS). That’s what another “arborist” told him was wrong with his ash tree. And that the disease would kill the tree, so he should remove it. Well, ash trees have a few problems around here of late, but bacterial leaf scorch isn’t one of them. Anyway, the tree didn’t look good and we talked about the true ash ailments – ash anthracnose (which the tree did have) and emerald ash borer (which hasn’t been found close to here yet). In the end, he agreed we should inspect the tree for EAB, just to be sure.

Today, Ricky and Dave climbed the tree, and the one next to it, and checked it thoroughly. Good news – negative for EAB.

The ailing ash

Holes in leaves: from the ground you can’t see them in detail, can’t tell if it’s insect feeding damage; close up it doesn’t look like it. More likely caused by damage to buds from our late frost

We look for any clue – here you can see the wood pile contains ash firewood

While we were getting started, this hackberry emperor butterfly came by and took a liking to the minerals on Dave’s hardhat strap. (Click the image to see a nice big version!)

Dave and Ricky each went up a tree

…and did a good, closeup inspection of the crown.

If you have ash trees and are concerned about emerald ash borer now that it has been discovered in Bucks County, right now is the best time to have them checked. This is the peak time for emergence of the adult insect.